How Online Travel Businesses Can Leverage Push Notifications for More Conversions

In this time and age, travelling is the latest obsession. Taking off to a new city or a country for a short break or a month-long vacation on a frequent basis is a much-loved hobby for the privileged. A decade ago, no one would have even imagined travelling frequently, but not anymore – the travel industry is booming.

Millennials are lazy

As much as they love to travel and are the ones travelling the maximum, millennials are quite lazy when it comes to actually making the bookings! We have proof: 30% of millennials are afraid that costs will increase if they don’t book their trips any sooner. 19% of consumers wait a week or less before departure to make a booking. Millennials, by the way, are more likely to hold this decision.

Therefore, there is a need to find a tactic that allows the travel businesses to end this hesitation by creating a buying journey that is specific to individual travellers. Well, the answer to that is personalized push notifications.

“Push” in the travel industry

In a travel-crazed world like ours, marketers working in the travel industry are putting every tactic into use to attract and engage new customers. So when Canadian travel app Hopper reported of getting 90% of its revenue from push notifications, it wasn’t surprisingly at all, because the power of push is finally being noticed across industries!

Introduced in Blackberry devices to notify users about their new emails, push notifications have evolved beyond that to convert into a smart marketing tactic. Did you know push notifications deliver 50% higher open rate than emails? Of course, you do. You understand the game of “push”!

Push notifications can easily guide the travellers towards the end of the conversion funnel by helping them not only plan the trip and delighting them with relevant info and tips but also planting the seed of “travelling to a new place” rather smartly.

Here are six situations around travel that can be highly converting if push notifications are used in the right fashion:

1) When the travel data is not enough

So a traveller came to your website and browsed through flight tickets from city A to B. But this process didn’t convince him to complete the payment process and he bounced from the website. What do you do? You send a push message showing him the cheapest flights to the preferred destination.

Booking a trip is a complicated process, especially if money plays a huge factor. Remove that obstacle and push the consumer ahead into the conversion funnel. Deliver the most recent flight prices to lure him.

2) When all the consumer need is a recommendation

eCommerce stores seemed to be doing a brilliant job with product recommendations. When it comes to online travel businesses, they must realize that not all visitors are customers; some of them need to be nurtured, and one way to do so is via recommendations.

Provide value to the consumer by sharing a link to an article on top 10 destinations or any other article that might interest him. Wigzo’s 360 degree user profiling can closely track your audience across various channels. Once you know what makes them click or convert, you can share the exact content with him via push.

3) When the flight or hotel prices take a dip

Nothing beats a flight cost dip – really! And the prospective customer should know about it from you first. There’s nothing better than push notifications for sharing such time-sensitive updates. It is indeed a motivator for the traveller to realize that now reaching a destination is cheaper than ever!

This happy thought would push him to convert on your website. He would see you as the “good guy”. There will be a heightened sense of brand affinity – who doesn’t love that?!

4) When you do post-booking ancillary cross-sell

Now just because a traveller has gone ahead and booked his flights on your website, doesn’t mean your job ends there. Why not share content around the hottest eateries or the most popular places to see in the city that the customer is travelling to?

Use push notifications to share extremely personalized information. If you also book hotels or bus tours online, perhaps send a messaging regarding that. Help the traveller in his planning.

5) When feedback plays an integral part

Of course – customer feedback is important! How else would you better your business and grow? Travelling is a social activity. From inspiration of destinations to exploring recommendations and accommodations, travellers rely on others who have already experienced the excitement they want to feel.

With push notifications, you can not only ensure they get a good deal on flights and accommodations but also help them plan their trip from A to Z. If the overall experience is good, they will recommend your business to fellow travellers.

So yes – feedback is very, very important to know if you are heading in the right direction.

6) When the travellers need to be reminded

Support travellers even after they have converted on your website. For instance, if it is time for them to do a web check-in, make sure you send a message. Make it easy for them. You can also make similar announcements such as flight alerts, seat upgrades, change in boarding gates, etc. Come on – the consumer is on a break. Let him relax while all you have to do is inform him!

The conclusion

Behavioural automation by Wigzo would help you combine marketing automation with individual behaviours of your target market to give a personalized experience. It will also ensure higher open rates, click rates and conversions – all with one-to-one communication. This completely fits the requirement of a travel business.

About the author

Asavari is a content writer at Wigzo. She creates compelling content as per the documented inbound strategies and focuses on bringing out the use cases of behavioural automation and push notifications.